WHEN a dying woman wrote to Coronation Street's Amanda Barrie begging her to stop producers turning Alma's cervical cancer into entertainment, the actress didn't reply.

The distraught viewer, a cervical cancer sufferer herself, felt certain she hadn't much longer to live and was concerned that her children, who watched the Street, would be upset.

"What could I say?" explains Amanda. "That I didn't have control of the storyline?"

Well, frankly, yes, that's precisely what she should have said, because it's the truth.

Professional actors, whether they're performers in Britain's top soap or smalltown rep are paid to deliver lines, not pontificate about the role.

It's a bit rich, now she's left the show, to hear Miss Barrie whinge about the demise of her character being a "cheap ratings ploy" and express anger at "irresponsible" scripts.

"I didn't like it one bit," she moans. Really? If she felt so strongly about the issue it would not have been impossible to walk away from the hugely paid job and wave goodbye to her contract on principle.

It's not uncommon in Hollywood for movie stars to quit a movie because the script offends their sensibilities.

Are we to believe that the same isn't possible in Manchester?

What she did in the event was worse, to take the money, play the part then express her tortured regrets to a newspaper for yet another sackload of money.

To me this is inexcusable and much more of a betrayal to a trusting audience.

I wouldn't deny there were areas of the storyline which were implausible.

It seems unlikely from talking to experts that Alma Halliwell's illness would have been diagnosed as terminal with such haste. Or that her death would have come so quickly.

And for families who have mothers, wives and daughters suffering from cervical cancer it cannot have made comfortable viewing.

The reality, according to the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, is that two-thirds of sufferers make full recoveries.

It's also worth mentioning that I was probably not the only woman who watched the final episode and made a mental note to call my doctor.

The fact that one Manchester hospital claims it is dealing with 1,000 smear tests a day as opposed to 2,000 a week indicates the plot had a more positive than negative response.

Not that this should be an excuse for pious programme makers to congratulate hemselves on their moral rectitude. They have only one aim. To put bums on seats. Increasingly soaps, in their battle for existence, have taken it upon themselves to deal with "issues".

Between them they've been through the entire catalogue of human catastrophes and back again, some requiring more willing suspension of disbelief than others.

The days when funerals, weddings and births were enough to manipulate us into tuning in are over. We expect high-powered drama whether it's rampant infidelity, homicide, rape or euthanasia.

"I believe the Street belongs to the nation," bleats Amanda. "The company which makes it, is just its caretaker."

Yes, and it's their job to keep us glued to it.

And they succeed.

Fifteen million of us tuned in to watch Alma die.

As for Miss Barrie's regret.

I'll believe it when she tells us that the vast sum she earned from her part in the storyline "she didn't like one bit" is on the way to a cancer charity of her choice.

THE seriousness of Mick Jagger's relationship with model Sophie Dahl, 38 years his junior, is apparently causing concern among the women in his life.

Even the rocker's former agent Emilio Scala was prompted to say: "I hope she doesn't break his heart".

Since Sophie is statuesque with voluptuous proportions and Jagger's a wizened little pygmy with matchstick legs, it's hardly his heart that Emilio should worry about but every bone in his body.

IT WAS heartening to see Ellen MacArthur, who single-handedly circumnavigated the world, rewarded in the Queen's birthday honours list with an MBE.

But what does she have to do to win a knighthood like those bestowed on round-the-world yachtsmen like Francis Chichester, Robin Knox-Johnston and Chay Blythe? Change sex perhaps?

MAGISTRATES dealing with teenage criminals have been advised to show them more sympathy.

And to avoid prejudice against black youths they've been urged to think of them as quirky Lenny Henry characters.

So this is what we do now, is it? Bend over backwards to justify people's behaviour.

The Judicial Studies Board which proposed these "guidelines" might as well have suggested that when a white thug lands up in the dock the judge might like to go home and watch a couple of hours of Alf Garnett (below).

He'll mean about as much to anyone under 40 as Lenny Henry will. Middle- class, middle-aged white judges trying to get real and get with it do not need to understand the cultural differences between teenage lads who end up in court.

They just need to implement justice.

I CANNOT in any shape or form call myself an Anthea Turner fan.

However, her confession that after four failed attempts at IVF she still cannot conceive left me feeling something verging on sympathy.

Realistically, she explained, she was blessed to have some share in husband Grant's three daughters. What I did not wish, nor expect to see a few days later, were pictures of a mumsy Anthea on a shopping expedition with her surrogate brood.

It may or may not have been a set-up pose but given her adept manipulation of the media that's exactly how it looked.

TERRY Holt, the father of three boys who appealed for a surrogate wife to join him on a family holiday, has delivered a verdict on Diana Bond, the woman he selected.

"Di is a lovely woman," he said after the fortnight in Turkey, "and very attractive but she is a little dull, a little parochial."

If he'd called her a two-timing poisonous superbitch he could hardly have been more insulting.

DRESSED as the scarlet lady in a red suit and matching shoes, the steely-eyed and unemotional Mary Archer made a show of accompanying husband Jeffrey to the Old Bailey last week. She re-appeared the following day to exchange pecks on the cheek.

The idea presumably was to demonstrate that talk of his extra-marital affairs had done nothing to dent their relationship.

It just made me even more convinced that they don't have one.

RINA and Michaelangelo Attard, the Maltese parents of Siamese twins, have finally returned to Gozo with their beautiful surviving baby daughter, Gracie.

Trust funds will ensure that they will never want for money. And the locals have given the family a warm welcome.

They are a devoutly religious couple, and they will I believe need their faith in years to come.

Britain performed a small miracle for this pair.

It provided them with Pat and Tony Hubble, a kind couple who nurtured them through the days of Rina's pregnancy and the birth of the twins.

It afforded them the skill of a wonderful medical team at St. Mary's in Manchester.

It granted them a legal team which took the heartbreaking decision of separating the twins out of their hands. For the Hubbles there is no thanks - the Attards no longer speak to them.

But what have the Attards done in return? For the taxpayers, who footed the pounds 20,000 medical bill, there is no obvious appreciation. For the lawyers, no praise.

God may forgive them. I couldn't.

ONE in three men questioned about cellulite by beauty company RoC had no idea what it was.

This is because men never get it.

And if they did, you can be sure, there would be a cure by now.

TAXPAYERS face a bill of pounds 1.5million to give Jamie Bulger's killers a secret new life.

Jon Venables and Robert Thompson already have new identities created by 30 professionals, bank accounts have been opened and Barclaycards issued bearing their fake identities.

Yet in Merseyside a digital shot of a teenage boy, believed to be Thompson and captured on CCTV, is doing the rounds.

Despite the pair being given more protection than a supergrass who has squealed on the IRA, one Sunday newspaper knows the details of Venables' intended location. Several stories, some untrue, some unproven, have been leaked to the press.

It's not the alleged lynch mob that authorities should be concerned about, but the people who are so eager to grass them up from inside.

FORMER Tory minister Edwina Currie has talked disparagingly about her new husband's friends.

Her own circle, she reveals, are "metropolitan'' while those of former Scotland Yard detective John Jones are suburban bores.

"They are intimidated by famous people,'' she says haughtily, "and I am intimidating anyway. I don't suffer fools, I have no small talk. Coronation Street is NOT part of my world. I'm not interested in the names of their grandchildren.''